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rosition of Massachusetts on the Slavery Question. 



SPEECH OE HOI, JAMES BUEEIITOJJ, 

OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
^ m THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 



APRIL 30, 1856. 



Mr. BUFFINTON. Mr. Chairman, so long as 
the debate on the great question of the day turn- 
ed upon the right of a gentleman to occupy a 
seat to which he had not been fairly elected I 
listened in silence to the protests so energetical- 
ly made against violations of constitutional rights 
on the one hand, and to the evasive apologies of- 
fered in reply. 

My votes, sir, as recorded upon the Journal of 
this House, will show how I have regarded the 
attempts of the Administration now in power to 
inflict upon the inhabitants of Kansas the curse 
ot domestic Slavery ; and that in defiance of the 
very act establishing the Territory, which pro- 
fessed to leave those who might settle there per- 
fectly free to form and regulate their domestic 
institutions in their own way, subject only to the 
Constitution of the United States. Now, sir we 
find those to whom this pledge has been so falsi- 
fied, those who have been deprived of their con- 
stitutional and of their organic rights, asking at 
the door of this House for admission as a sover- 
eign State. And I feel, sir, that I should act in 
opposition to the dictates of my own conscience 
that I should betray the interests of my constitu- 
ents, and that I should be recreant to the prin- 
ciples of that State which I am proud to repre- 
sent in part on this floor, did I not demand for 
the citizens of Kansas what they ask— not as a 
boon, but as a right. Never, sir, has this great 
question of the extension of Slavery come up be- 
fore Congress, that gentlemen herefrom the dis- 
trict which I have the honor to represent, have 
not taken the same stand against it which it is 

+ TT .? 7 TT pride t0 take " The records, sir, show 
that the Hon. N. B. Borden, and the Hon Arte- 
mas Hale, and the Hon. S. L. Crocker, from the 
beginning to the termination of their connection 
with this body, gave a sincere, earnest, and em- 
phatic nay— a Massachusetts opposition to every 
measure which recognised Slavery as national"- 
which extended its territory, or which increased 
its powers. 

Last, though not least, I am guided by the ex- 
ample left by another of my predecessors, the 
lamented Fowler, whose grave is near my home 
whose memory is enshrined in my heart. It was 
my good fortune to enjoy ut • endship and his 



confidence: to profit by his discriminating judg- 
ment and his correct impulses; to feel as his 
constituent that he would defend my rights, and 
the rights of every other voter in his district, with 
manly boldness. And, sir, with this record of 
fidelity to Freedom by all of my predecessors, 
through so many years of political excitement, 
of partisan triumphs, and of local animosities, it 
would ill become me to falter, or to prove recre- 
ant in this trying hour. Were it possible, sir, 
that I should be led astray from the path so 
clearly marked out by those who have preceded 
me, I should be an unworthy representative, too 
of that hallowed portion of my district where re- 
pose the mortal remains of Daniel Webster. I 
cannot forget, sir, that not ten years have 
elapased since he, at the other end of the Capi- 
tol, expressed his deliberate opinion that it is 
certain, if anything is certain, that the sentiment 
of the whole North is opposed to the admission 
of new slave States. 

I am aware, sir, that Mr. Webster -is now an 
object of adulation to those who, at the last mo- 
ment, disappointed his hopes, and snatched from 
him the reward for the patriotic sentiments which 
they now so often quote. Let those gentlemen 
before they talk about the position of Massachu- 
setts in the days of Daniel Webster, read his 
glorious speech at New York in 1837 against the 
admission of Texas as a slave State— let them 
read his speech in the United States Senate on 
the 1st of March, 1847, upon presenting resolu- 
tions from the State of Massachusetts. These 
resolutions, sir, I will read, to show what the 
opinion of Massachusetts was in those days to 
which gentlemen now refer; and in the Congres- 
sional Globe can be found the remarks of Mr. 
Webster on presenting th»m— clear, distinct, im- 
perative, in their behalf: 

"Resolved, unanimously, That the Legislature 
' of Massachusetts views the existence of Human 
' Slavery within the limits of the United States as 
' a great calamity — an immense moral and politi- 
' cal evil, which ought to be abolished as soon as 
' thatend can be properly and constitutionally 
' attained; and that its extension should be uni- 
' formly and earnestly opposed by all good and 
' patriotic men throughout the Union. 






" Resolved, unanimously, That the people of 
' Massachusetts will strenuously resist the annex- 
' ation of any new Territory to this Union, in 
' which the institution of Slavery is to be tolerated 
' or established ; and the Legislature, in behalf 
' of the people of this Commonwealth, do hereby 
' solemnly protest against the acquisition of any 
' additional Territory ,without an express provision 
' by Congress that there shall be neither Slavery 
' nor involuntary servitude in such Territory, 
' otherwise than for the punishment of crime." 

I am aware, sir, that many honorable gentle- 
men on this floor listen with sensitive ears to all 
discu ssion which involves the question of Slavery, 
and that some of them even go so far as to take 
offence at plain statements of facts or of grievan- 
ces. It is neither my wish nor my intention to 
arouse this sectional agitation. Yet it would be 
useless for any Representative here to state his 
peculiar views on a subject under discussion, or 
to place the position of his constituents fairly be- 
fore this House, if he did not speak frankly and 
fully, or if he did not boldly meet the erroneous 
arguments advanced by others, and plainly ex- 
pose their falsity, with a steady regard for truth 
and for right. Yet, sir, it is not by recriminations 
that we can arrive at a fair settlement of this 
question, or of any other question in which sec- 
tional interests have been entwined. Menace, 
sir, is unwise, because it is universally ineffectual ; 
and it is with deep regret that I have heard, since 
the commencement of the present session of this 
House, the State which I, in common with other 
gentlemen around me, have the honor to repre- 
sent, denounced and defamed. 

Think not for a moment, sir, that because we 
who represent Massachusetts on this floor have 
not thrown back the opprobrious epithets with 
which our constituents have beeD assailed, that 
we are to be drawn from our course by taunts, 
or sneers, or threats. These may ring in our 
ears, and make our blood tingle for the moment; 
but we will not stop to hurl them back upon 
those who have indulged in this style of declama- 
tion. We are conscious, sir, that the time is not 
far distant when they will regret having used this 
language. And I, for one, sir, do not intend to 
falter by the wayside to indulge in personal con- 
tentions, or to swerve from the direct line of po- 
litical duty, to mingle in the turmoil of personal 
or partisan encounter. It is not my intention, 
sir, to reply to the injurious reproaches or to the 
unfounded assertions against the old Bay State, 
calculated to exasperate those citizens of other 
portions of the Republic who do not remember 
the injunctions of Washington, *" to frown in- 
1 dignantly upon the first dawning of every at- 
' tempt to alienate one portion of our country 
' from the other." 

Massachusetts, sir, needs no apologists, and 
asks no favors, but relies with full confidence on 
her own consciousness of rectitude. She has 
often been assailed ; yet it is a matter of record 
that few laurels have ever been gained by her 
enemies — whether savage or civilized, external 
or internal. The " land of the free, and the 
home of the brave," she has ever been willing to 
b«ar her full share of public burdens, and has 



found her own resources equal for every emer- 
gency. Nor has it ever been the case, sir, that 
the people of Massachusetts have forgotten that 
they are the champions, by birthright, of civil and 
religious liberty. It was an indomitable deter- 
mination to assert those sacred principles which 
led the Pilgrim Fathers across the stormy ocean, 
to the rock-bound coast of a dreary wilderness. 
There, sir, in the inhospitable season of storms, 
surrounded by wild beasts, and by more fero- 
cious savages, they res&lved " to live free, or 
cease to live." Sacredly, sir, has that pledge 
been kept ! It was in defence of civil and reli- 
gious liberty that the men of Massachusetts 
fought the wily Penobscots, excited by their 
Jesuit missionaries to deeds of rapine and cruelty. 
It was in defence of civil and religious liberty that 
they conquered the fortress of Louisbourg, the 
stronghold of a Power that had sought to impose 
a religious despotism upon this entire continent; 
and it was in defence of civil and religious liber- 
ty that the soil of Lexington and of Bunker Hill 
was moistened with Massachusetts blood, as her 
sons commenced that armed resistance to tyrants 
which they regarded as obedience to God. "An 
appeal to Heaven," was the motto inscribed upon 
their pine-tree flag ; and nobly did soldiers aud 
civilians, men of strong arms and mighty minds, 
enter into the conflict, pledging "their lives, their 
fortunes, and their sacred honors." 

Nor was it at home, alone, sir, that the men of 
Massachusetts fought during the revolutionary 
struggle. No other State furnished as many 
troops, or as manj r munitions of war. And she 
may be traced on every battle-field along the At- 
lantic coast, by the bones of her heroic sons. 
Nay, sir, when the invading foe had made their 
proud boast that Carolina was subdued, it was a 
New England mechanic — the gallant Greene — 
who led Massachusetts men to the succor of 
Sumter and Marion. Shoulder to shoulder they 
fought — they conquered. And when, at last, the 
Britons were forced to lay down their arms at 
Yorktown, the haughty Cornwallis surrendered 
his sword to the brave Lincoln, a Massachusetts 
officer, who had gallantly, though unsuccessfully, 
defended Charleston during a protracted siege., 
And they fought, be it remembered, for certain 
'■inalienable rights," among which were enumer- 
ated " liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 

As it was in the Revolution, so has it been in 
subsequent conflicts. Though a peaceful Com- 
monwealth, Massachusetts yields to none in lib- 
eral and generous sacrifices of blood and of treas- 
ure. Her troops are ever ready for the field, and 
her hardy mariners go into the conflict like their 
own " Constitution," built of Massachusetts oak, 
launched in Massachusetts waters, and manned 
by Massachusetts mariners, pouring forth victo- 
rious broadsides. 

But these are not the achievements, sir, in which 
Massachusetts takes the most pride. Her citizens 
consider that peace has its victories as well as 
war, and we point with pride to our churches, and 
school-houses, and manufactories, and com- 
merce — those evidences of industry and of edu- 
cation. With us, labor is not reluctant drudge- 
ry ; it is cheerful, contented, spirited, because it 



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is respectable, aud because it is certain of it3 
reward. 

An eloquent Senator from South Carolina [Mr. 
Preston] once remarked, that, although Massa- 
chusetts was the most prosperous State in the 
Union, she exported no natural products but 
granite and ice. This is true, sir ; but though 
Nature frowns upon us, nowhere else is the hand 
of manufacturing industry more visibly busy. 
We are told, sir, that in 184". the aggregate pro- 
ductive industry of the Commonwealth was 
$1 14,000,000. Now, as appears by statistics re- 
cently published from the office of the Secretary 
of State, it will go up to $300,000,000— making 
a growth of one hundred per cent, in the produc- 
tive wealth of the State for ten years. In the 
cotton manufacture the growth has been from 
$12,000,000 to $2(3,000,000; in calico, from 
$4,000,000 to $5,000,000; in woollens, from 
$8,000,000 to $12,000,000; in linen, from 
$145,000 to $1,500,000 ; in shoes,from $14 ,000,000 
to $38,000,000 ; in steam engines, from $200,000 
to $3,250,000 ; in copper and brass manufactures, 
from $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 ; in glass, from 
$750,000 to $2,750,000; and in chemicals, from 
$300,000 to $1,124,000. 

Surely, sir, this does not look as if the indus- 
trial reputation of Massachusetts was degenera- 
ting, although certain gentlemen have been 
pleased to draw disparaging comparisons be- 
tween her present and her "ancient character." 
Let gentlemen remember, when they speak of the 
Massachusetts of 1856, that a goodly share of 
the national revenue is paid at her custom- 
houses, and that two-thirds of all the cotton 
consumed in the United States, and two-thirds 
of all the cotton manufactures produced, are 
consumed and produced in the part of the coun- 
try of which Boston is the commercial metropo- 
lis and chief business centre. The value of do- 
mestic cotton manufactures disposed of in Boston 
in the year 1855, by first hands, was $46,700,000. 
The value of domestic manufactured woollens 
disposed of in Bostou in the year 1855, by first 
hands, was $22,000,000 ; making the total of do- 
mestic cottons and woollens $6S,700,000. 

In commerce, Massachusetts is second only to 
New York : but in proportion to population, the 
first in the Union. Her unrivalled clippers bear 
the stars and stripes in every sea, and her hardy 
mariners visit every shore, ploughing the Arctic 
ices, opening new ports under the sun of the 
equator, and ever ready to create new commerce 
wherever fresh channels are opened. Her fish- 
eries are the nurseries whence our navy is to be 
manned in case of war ; and an idea of the value 
of her commercial lleet may be formed from the 
fact that the amount invested in ships belong- 
ing to the Boston district alone is estimated at 
$25,000,000. Out of 175 ships which arrived in 
the United States from beyond the Cape of Good 
Hope in the year 1854, 105 arrived in Boston; 
and out of 154 which arrived in 1855, 86 came 
into Boston, 7 to Salem, 1 to Providence, 54 to 
New York, 5 to Philadelphia, and 1 to Baltimore. 
Of the 54 which arrived in New York, 14 from 
China were owned in Boston. 

With such resources, sir, it is not strange that 



Massachusetts maintains, and ever has main- 
tained, her obligations, both in letter and spirit. 
Her State bonds, sir, are never seen quoted 
among the "fancy stocks" on which the "bulls" 
and the " bears " of exchanges revel in specula- 
tion. And yet, sir, this people, so enterprising 
and so industrious — so diligent in extending the 
name and the fame of this Republic, by honora- 
ble commercial transactions — is stigmatized as 
degraded. Ah, sir, could the gentlemen who 
have denounced her ride over thirteen hundred 
miles of railroad which cover her with a net- 
work of prosperity — could they visit her six col- 
leges, her four hundred academies, and her thir- 
ty-six hundred well-kept schools, sustained at an 
annual expense of one million six hundred thou- 
sand dollars — they might think the old Bay State 
worthy to "enjoy" their friendship and share 
their confidence. 

But we have been told, sir, by the gentleman 
from South Carolina, that all this is a "magnifi- 
cent diorama," and ftiat we " do not show the 
machinery with which it is worked." He " sends 
an arrow," and it goes poisoned with sneers at a 
"large array of starving operatives," which, so 
far as my own district is concerned, I challenge 
him to find. There are "operatives" there in 
abundance — almost every man is an ?' operative; " 
and it has been shown on this floor, sir, during 
this session of Congress, that Massachusetts 
" operatives " are not to be despised. Sir, I am 
a representative of " operatives." The farmers 
of my district are all " operatives ; " and min- 
gled among them, sharing their society, in every 
town are other " operatives," engaged in manu- 
factures of every kind. In my own immediate 
home, the beautiful city of Fall River, I am sur- 
rounded by " operatives," whom I meet wherever 
I go, in the street, in the lecture-room, and in the 
worship of God, while the busy hum of their ma- 
chinery is never out of my ears. I know "oper- 
atives " well. We turn with exultation, sir, to 
those who are trained to mechanical trades in 
our work-shops — who have no resources but 
their own exertions — but who can enjoy the ben- 
efits of education, and are not debarred from 
official positions at home by not being possessed 
of estates worth so many pounds. These " oper- 
atives " are the men — prompted, stimulated, and 
urged forward, with the hope of excelling in 
whatever they undertake — that rise to eminence, 
and are the pride of Massachusetts. 

Perhaps the gentleman would like to know (he 
secret by which Massachusetts, which has no 
natural productions for export but granite and 
ice, surpasses the rich Palmetto State. It is the 
absence of that competition with slave labor, 
which, in his section, depresses the operative 
class, or able judges have left false testimony. 
Their evidence, sir, has a direct bearing upon 
the Kansas question. We are all interested, as 
owners of the national domain, in the lands 
there, and should Listen to good advice as to 
what domestic relations should give them a mar- 
ket value. 

First, sir, let us listen to George Washing- 
ton — to him who was " first in war, first in peace, 
first hi the hearts of his couutrvmen." What 



did he say? I quote from 12th volume Sparks's 
Writings of Washington, page 326. Writing from 
Philadelphia, he says : 

" From what I have said, you will perceive that 

* the present prices of lands in Pennsylvania are 
' higher than they are in Maryland and Virginia, 
1 although they are not of superior quality." 

And, after enumerating several other auxiliary 
causes for this, he adds : 

"And because there are laws here for the 
1 gradual abolition of Slavery, which neither of 

* the two States above mentioned have at pres- 

* ent, but which nothing is more certain than 

* that they must have, and at a period Dot re- 

* mote." 

Again, in writing to John F. Mercer, Septem- 
ber 9, 1786, (Writings of Washington, vol. 9, 
page 159,) the Father of his Country says: 

" I never mean, unless some particular circum- 

* stances should compel me to it, to possess an- 
' other slave by purchase — it being among my 
' first wishes to see some plau adopted by which 
1 Slavery in this country may be abolished by 
' law." 

And what said Thomas Jefferson, the "apostle 
of American Democracy," whose place is now so 
strangely (I will not use a stronger word) filled] 
I read from his "Notes on Virginia," pages 221, 
222. He says: 

" There must doubtless be an unhappy infiu- 
' ence upon the manners of our people, produced 
1 by the existence of Slavery among us. The 

* whole commerce between master and slave is a 
' perpetual exercise of the most boisterous pas- 

* sions, the most unremitting despotism on the 
' one part, and degrading submissions on the 
' other. Our children see this, and learn to imi- 
1 tate it; for man is an imitative animal. * * 
' The parent storms, the child looks on, catches 
1 the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs 
' in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to 
' the worst of passions, and, thus nursed, edu- 
' cated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot 
1 but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. 
1 The man must be a prodigy who can retain his 
1 manners and morals undepraved by such cir- 
' cumstances. And with what execration should 
' the statesman be loaded, who. permitting one 
' half the citizens thus to trample on the rights 
' of the other, transforms those into despots, and 
' these into enemies, destroys the morals of the 
' one part, and the amor patriot of the other. For 
' if a 6lave can have a country in this world, it 
' must be any other in preference to that in 
' which he is born to live and labor for another ; 
1 in which he must lock up the faculties of his 
' nature, contribute, as far as depends on his in- 
1 dividual endeavors, to the- evanishment of the 
4 human race, or entail his own miserable con- 
' dition on the endless generations proceeding 
* from him. With the morals of the people, their 

< industry also is destroyed; for' in a warm cli- 
' mate no man will labor for himself who can 
« make another labor for him. This is so true, 

< that of the proprietors of slaves a very small 
' proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And 
' can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, 
i when we have removed their only firm basis, a 



' conviction in the minds of the people that their 
' liberties are the gift of God? — that they are not 
' to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I 
' tremble for my country, when I reflect that God 
' is just ; that His justice cannot sleep forever ; 
' that, considering numbers, nature, and natural 
' means only, a revolation of the wheel of fortune, 
' an exchange of situation, is among possible 
' events ; that it may become probable by super- 
' natural interference! The Almighty has no 
' attribute which can take side with us in such 
' a contest." 

Is this satisfactory ? There is no lack of such 
testimony, sir, coming, too, from the most eminent 
sons of Virginia, that " maternal home of Presi- 
dents." In a debate in her House of Delegates 
in 1832, Gov. McDowell said : 

" Who, sir, that looks at this property as a leg- 
' islator, and marks its effect upon our national 
' advance, but weeps over it as the worst of pat- 
' rimonies ? Who that looks at this unhappy bond- 
' age of an unhappy people in the midst of our so- 
' ciety, and thinks of its incidents and its issues, 
' but weeps over it as a curse upon him who inflicts, 
' as upon him who suffers it? * * * Sla- 
' very has come down to us from aur fathers, and 
' the question now is, Shall we, in turn, hand it 
' over to our children ? — hand it over to them ag- 
' gravated in every attribute of evil ? Shall we 
' perpetuate the calamity we deplore, and become 
' to posterity the objects, not of kindness, but of 



cursing ; 



If gentlemen do not see 



nor feel the evil of Slavery whilst this Federal 
' Union lasts, they will see and feel it when it is 
' gone ; they will see and suffer it, then, in a mag- 
' nitude of desolating power to which the ' pesti- 
' lence that walketh at noonday ' would be a bless- 
' ing — to which the malaria that is now threaten- 
' ing extinction to the 'Eternal City,' as the proud 
' one of the Pontiffs and the Ca?sars is called, 
1 would be as refreshing and as balmy as the first 
' breath of spring to the chamber of disease, 
' * * * It has been frankly and unequivo- 
' cally declared, from the very commencement of 
' this debate, by the most decided enemies of 
' abolition themselves, as well as others, that this 
' property is an ' evil '• — that it is a dangerous prop- 
' erty. Yes, sir, so dangerous has it been repre- 
' sented to be, even by those who desire to retain 
' it, that we have been reproached for speaking 
1 of it otherwise than in fireside whispers ; re- 
' proached for entertaining debate upon it in this 
' Hall ; and the discussion of it with open doors 
' and to the general ear has been charged upon 
' us as a climax of rashness and folly, which 
' threatens issues of calamity to our country." 
Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier county, said : 
" Wherefore, then, object to Slavery ? Because 
' it is ruinous to the whites, retards improvement, 
' roots out an industrious population, banishes 
' the yeomanry of the country, deprives the spin- 
' ner, the weaver, the smith, the shoemaker, the 
' carpenter, of employment and support. The evil 
' admits of no remedy. It is increasing, and will 
' continue to increase, until the whole country will 
' become inundated with one black wave, cover- 
' ing its whole extent, with a few white faces here 
' and there floating on the surface. There is no 



1 diversity of occupations, no incentive to enter- 

' prise. Labor of every species is disreputable, 

' because performed mostly by slaves. Our towns 

1 are stationary, our villages almost everywhere 

' declining, and the general aspect of the country 

' marks the curse of a wasteful, idle, reckless 

« population, who have no interest in the soil, and 

' care not how much it is impoverished. Public 

1 improvements are neglected, and the entire con- 

1 tinent does not present a region for which Nature 

1 has done so much and art so little." 

Henry Berry, of Jefferson county, said : 

"Sir, I believe that no cancer in the physical 

' body was ever more certain, steady, and fatal, 

' in its progress, than is this cancer on the politi- 

' cal body of the State of Virginia. It is eating 

1 into her very vitals." 

Phillip A. Boiling, of Buckingham county, said : 
" High-minded men should disdain to hold their 
1 fellow- creatures as articles of traffic— disregard- 
' mg all the ties of blood and affection, tearing 
1 asunder all those sympathies dear to men, divi- 
' ding husbands and wives, parents and children, 
€ as they would cut asunder a piece of cotton 
' cloth." 

I might go on, sir, and fill a large volume with 
quotations, but I forbear. It was my object, after 
denying the truth of the gentleman's sneers at the 
" operatives " of Massachusetts, to prove that, by 
the force of circumstances, they were superior to 
those of the South. I have examined my wit- 
nesses, and now I will close the argument, quoting 
the very words used in the House of Delegates 
of Virginia (in the debate previously alluded to) 
by Mr. Summers, a Delegate from the western 
portion of the Old Dominion : 

"We claim but the right to attempt the defence 
4 of our people from what they themselves [eastern 
' Virginians] have acknowledged in this debate to 
4 be the sorest curse which offended Deity ever 
1 visited upon a sinning people. 

" Labor becomes dishonorable, because it is the 
" business of a slave ; and when industry is made 
1 dishonorable or unfashionable, virtue is attacked 
4 in her strongest citadel. 

^ "But, sir, the evils of this system cannot be 

enumerated. It were unnecessary to attempt 

it. They glare upon us at every step. When 

' the owner looks to his wasted estate, he knows 

and feels them. When a statesman examines 

' the condition of his country, and finds her moral 

influence gone, her physical strength diminished, 

her political power waning, he sees and must 

4 confess them." 

But while the people of Massachusetts, sir, 
have sought to elevate her to a high place on the 
scale of States, they have not been unmindful of 
their national responsibility. Never unmindful 
of the rights of other States, which it is their 
pride to respect, they have fearlessly sought the 
extension of civil and religious liberty over every 
portion of this continent where it can be intro- 
duced. Foremost among communities in remov- 
ing the yoke of bondage from all within their 
limits, they have ever endeavored to make Sla- 
very a sectional— not a national— stigma, by op- 
posing its introduction into new Territories and j 
States. Turn over the records of our national I 



councils, sir, and you will find that the Repre- 
sentatives from Massachusetts have ever been 
round occupying the same ground where we now 
stand. It was Nathan Dane, of Massachusetts, 
sir, who procured the passage of the celebrated 
Ordinance of 1*787, for the government of the 
Northwest Territory, to which Virginia so mag- 
nanimously assented. How glorious have been 
the results I State after State has risen into ex- 
istence, each a living evidence of Massachusetts 
enterprise and Massachusetts energy ; for it was 
a little colony sent out from one of her small 
hamlets, with its minister and its schoolmaster, 
that was the germ of Ohio and of her sister 
Commonwealths— those stalwart pioneers in tho 
march of progress. 

On the admission of Missouri into the Union 
in 1820, and on every other occasion when at- 
tempts have been made to extend the blighting 
influence of the Slave Power, the Senators and 
Representatives of Massachusetts have ever en- 
deavored to assert the principles of civil and reli- 
gious liberty. Rightfully, manfully, nobly, have 
most of them stood forward to express the opin- 
ion of their constituents, even though they have 
been menaced, derided, and censured, for their 
inextinguishable love of Freedom. Nor has any 
one of these gentlemen (able and eloquent as 
many of them have been in maintaining the rights 
of those whom they represented) equalled the 
talented ex-Representative of the Essex north 
district, now Attorney General of the United 
States.^ His "opinions" should surely pass cur- 
rent with the supporters of the present Adminis- 
tration, and to their attention would I respectfully 
commend the speech made by the Hon. Caleb 
Cu _f hin g, on the floor of this House, in February, 
1837. It can be found in the second part of the 
thirteenth^ volume of Congressional Debates, and 
is a glowing, brilliant defence of his native State, 
which I would like to see circulated throughout 
the Pnion at this very time. I shall content 
myself with quoting two paragraphs, which have 
a direct bearing upon the momentous questions 
of the day. 

"Gentlemen" (said the honorable Attorney 
4 General) "denounce, in no measured terms, the 
distinguishing opinions of Massachusetts on the 
' subject of this great question of public liberty, 
' incidental to the resolution before us. Thev 
' err most egregiously, if they believe that such 
' opinions are exclusively peculiar to Massachu- 
' setts or to New England. Those opinions pre- 
1 vail quite as extensively in the great States of 
' New York. Pennsylvania, and Ohio, for example, 
' as they do in New England. Thev are, indeed, 
' opinions of elemental right, lying at the very 
' bottom of all the political institutions of the 
« country. It may be that such opinions are 
more strongly held, and more universally under- 
' stood, in New England, than elsewhere in the 
' United States. I may not deny it. Deny it? I 
4 glory in the fact. It is the proof and the result 
' of our old and persevering dedication to Lib- 
' erty. 

" Gentlemen talk to us of these our great fon- 
' damental rights— as the freedom of speech, of 
' opinion, of petition— as if they were derived 



6 



from the Constitution of the United States. I 
scout such a doctrine. If there were a drop in 
my veins that did not rebel against the senti- 
ment, it would be bastard blood. Sir, I claim 
to be descended from the king-killing Round- 
heads of the reign of Charles I ; through a 
race of men not unremembered in peace or war; 
never backward in the struggles of Liberty ; a 
family, upon the head of a member of which 
the lirst price of blood was set by Great Britain, 
in revenge for his early devotion to the cause of 
Independence. I venerate their character and 
their principles. I am ready to do as they did — 
to abandon all the advantages of country, liome, 
fortune, station — to fly to some Western wilder- 
ness, and to live upon a handful of parched corn 
and a cup of cold water, with God's blessing 
on honest independence — sooner than I will 
surrender one jot or tittle of those great prin- 
ciples of Liberty which I have sucked in with 
my mother's milk. I disdain to hold these rights 
by any parchment title. The people of the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts, the people of every 
State of this Union, came into it in the full pos- 
session and fruition of all these rights. We did 
not constitute this Government as the means of 
acquiring new rights, but for the protection of 
old ones, which nature had conferred upon us ; 
which the Constitution rightly regard? as pre- 
existing rights ; and as to which all the Con- 
stitution does is to provide that these rights 
neither you, nor any power on earth, shall 
alter, abrogate, or abridge. They are rights of 
Heaven's own giving. We hold them by the 
supreme tenure of revolution. We hold them 
by the dread arbitrament of battle. We hold 
them by the concession of a highter and broader 
charter than all the Constitutions in the land — 
the free donation of the eternal God, when he 
made us to be men. These, the cardinal prin- 
ciples of Human Freedom, he has implanted in 
us, and placed them before, and behind, and 
around us, for our guard and guidance, like the. 
cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night, 
which led the Israelites through the desert. 
It is a Liberty, native, inborn, original, unde- 
rived, imprescriptible, and acknowledged in the 
Constitution itself, as pre-eminently before and 
above the Constitution.'' 

In these significant paragraphs, Mr. Chairman, 
we have the predominant impulse — the main- 
spring, if I may so term it — of the Massachusetts 
emigration to Kansas. Civil and religious Lib- 
erty, like the cloud by day and the pillar of fire 
by night, has directed the course of those who 
have gone to settle in these fertile valleys. The 
whole vocabulary of opprobrious terms appears 
to have been exhausted in denouncing them, and 
in calumniating those who have afforded them 
"aid." But I feel conscious, sir, that they will 
submit their Territorial life to any ordeal of in- 
vestigation; and I am equally confident, sir, that 
they are nowise behind their neighbors of Mis- 
souri in honesty, intelligence, industry, or bra- 
very. They are men of strong hands and stout 
hearts, accompanied and encouraged by women 
of pure and elevated character. And they are 
equal, sir, in my humble opinion, to the most 



chivalrous and refined members of any "first 
family" in the Old Dominion. 

The Massachusetts men in Kansas were not 
driven from their pleasant homes by the impov* 
erishing agriculture of their fathers, or by un* 
kind treatment ; but they go forth, loving sons 
from a kind mother, bearing her benediction and 
her principles. And in taking possession, as citi* 
zens of these United States, of that virgin soil 
which is our common heritage, they are anima- 
ted by that same Massachusetts spirit which led 
Adams and Hancock not only to declare their 
rights, but to maintain and defend them. They 
look onward, in the broad path of public dutj ; 
and if impediments or conflicts are placed in 
their way, depend upon it they will not flinch 1 
Neither empty threats nor flashing knives will 
affect their nerves. Either can be met by them 
without shrinking, and without exciting any 
other emotion than contempt for their calumni- 
ators, and pity for the weakness of those who 
threaten, yet have not either the courage or the 
power to execute their impotent edicts. 

But a bugbear, sir, is ever held up, when the 
New England emigrants are mentioned. We are 
told, sir. by way of proving their total depravity, 
that they go armed with Sharpe's rifles.' Is this 
a Yankee notion? or has it been the case from 
the first settlement of the Mississippi valley, that 
every emigrant who went forth has taken a rifle 
with him, and taken the very best rifle that he 
could get? When Missouri was settled, sir, 
would it have been fair to have made a to-do 
because some enterprising emigrants went there 
with percussion-lock rifles, then just beginning 
to supersede the old flint and steel? Or would 
you have expected Daniel Boone, when he first 
explored the fertile slopes of Kentucky, to have 
carried an antiquated match-lock, because "flint 
and steel" was a "Yankee notion?" I fear, sir, 
that gentlemen who are so fond of using this ex- 
pression do not understand the definition of this 
word " Yankee ; " and for their benefit I will quote 
from the speech of an honorable member of Con- 
gress, made when a new State was asking for 
admittance. He told his fellow-members, sir, 
upon the authority of time-honored tradition, 
that 

" During the revolutionary war, two citizens of 
Connecticut were sent to New York to negotiate 
an exchange of prisoners. At the table of the 
commander of the British army, where these 
gentlemen were invited to dine, (not, however, 
for any votes they had given,) the term ' Yankee' 
was overheard in an under tone. Lord Howe, 
in a pleasant manner, asked these gentlemen 
the meaning of the term ' Yankee, 1 which he had 
heard at his table, (casting a look of reproof 
and censure upon some young officers from 
whom it came.) The reply was, ' It is derived 
from two Indian ivords, signifying Wasp and Hor- 
net, and is full of meaning — -the Wasp never aban- 
dons the citadel; the Hornet drives the enemy from 
his borders.' " 

Since the time when Captain, Miles Standish 
was appointed to teach the Puritans " the use of 
arms," the citizens of Massachusetts have ever 
held it as an axiom, that " It is the first duty of 



a freeman to be a good citizen ; the second, to be 
a good soldier;" not that they desire the blood- 
stained laurels of the conqueror, or booty won 
hy the sword ; but, depend upon it, sir, they will 
ever maintain that Freedom for which their fathers 
fought, and which they will ever defend. They 
consider that the dedication of any large portion 
of the community to the exclusive business of 
bearing arms, is as adverse to the rights and in- 
terests of the Republic as it is hostile to our com- 
mon institutions and our common safety. And 
what better proof of this could we have, sir, than 
in the fact that a thousand able-bodied men have 
been idling away the past six months at Forts 
Leavenworth and Kearney, waiting for a chance 
to " crush out" Freedom in Kansas " by authori- 
ty ? " I, sir, protest against this military interfer- 
ence which is becoming so supreme, though I do 
not believe that the American people will ever so 
crouch to martial law as to make a provost-mar- 
shal's guard superior to a sheriff's posse, or to 
desecrate the parchment on which the Declaration 
of Independence is written, by permitting it to be 
taken for a drum head. 

But, sir, the emigrants who went from Massa- 
chusetts and other New England States to Kan- 
sas were not to be frightened by a few dragoons 
or by an unauthorized militia force. The exigen- 
cies of the times called upon them to stand up in 
vindication of the great principles of Freedom — to 
grapple with Executive arrogance — to contend 
for thk right! They felt proudly conscious that 
they had toiled to the mountain top, where the i 
land of promise was in full sight — and that the 
sun of the next Administration would rise in glory 
over Kansas as Freedom's home, or that it would 
sink into the dark night of Slavery. Nor is it 
strange, sir, that every American, not blinded by 
sectional prejudice, should wish them well, and 
feel his heart throb with warm wishes for their 
success. Such was the case during the Greek, and 
the Polish, and the French, and the Hungarian 
revolutions — when our feelings were enlisted with 
those distant people, and their war-cry of " Lib- 
erty," echoing in our breasts, went booming back 
with "material aid," to cheer and to animate the 
struggling sous of Freedom. Nay, sir, what was 
the feeling when our fellow-citizens who had emi- 
grated to Texas, and there sought to establish a 
State, were threatened by an edict requiring an 
unqualified submission to military despotism ? 
An honorable Senator from Mississippi has an- 
swered this question, sir;- and truly applicable 
are his remarks : 

" They resisted the enforcement of this order, 

* and never would I have uttered a word in favor 
' of their recognition if they had not. Had they 
' tamely submitted to such an act of oppression, 
' they would have been unworthy of the name of 
' Americans. Had they bowed their necks to 
' the yoke, and submissively yielded up their 
' limbs to the chain, I would never have voted to 

• welcome them among the nations of the free. 
' Suppose the President of these United States 



' should enter the Halls of Congress, seize our 
' persons, and drive us from our seats, and oc- 
' cupy them with his creatine: ; suppose he should 
' then send out a band of mercenaries into Mary^- 
' land, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, should disarm 
' our citizens, and demand of them, with threats, 
' an unqualified submission to his absolute will : 
' I ask whether there lives a man so abject as 
' not to resist ? No. I know, all men know, 
' that the people of those States would maintain 
' their Freedom, or perish ij^the struggle. The 
' citizens of Texas have JBRe just what would 
1 have been done, in the lik^rose, by citizens of the 
' United States. "We did so in circumstances far 
' less intolerable. The colonial oppression of the 
' Government of Great Britain was mild, wa3 
' paternal, in comparison with the despotism that 
' was sought to be fixed on the necks of the citi- 
' zens of Texas. Their resistance of it was justi- 
' tied by all laws, human and divine." 

I will not occupy the time of this House by 
drawing a parallel between the people of Kan- 
sas and the people of Texas. The wrongs of 
each have been chronicled by others ; and it is 
to be hoped that one will be as successful as the 
other in obtaining a full share in the blessings 
of the Union. Others have stated the wrongs 
committed upon Kansas, and the attempts made 
to hinder her actual citizens in erecting their 
temple of State sovereignty. They are matters 
of record ; and now we see the edifice in all its 
fair proportions. The winds of partisan elo- 
quence mey blow against it, the rains of political 
wrath may descend, and the floods of Executive 
power may compass it about, but it will not fall, 
for its foundation is sure ! 

Let us welcome the State of Kansas, which 
will come into this Union free and independent. 
We need, sir, a fresh infusion of that sovereign- 
ty to check the encroachments of the Executive, 
and to infuse a new republican spirit into our 
Government. We ask not an extension of what 
all must admit to be a cloud upon our national 
shield, but we greet with joy a Commonwealth 
which will acknowledge no obedience but to 
God, and to the laws — a State where Liberty and 
Justice, hand in hand, will uphold the escutcheon 
of Freedom, surmounted by the glorious stripes 
and stars. 

Hail, then, to free Kansas, with her free schools, 
her free press, her freedom of thought, her free- 
dom of the priceless soul ! Let the railroad and 
the telegraph cross her slopes, instead of the buf- 
falo and the prairie wolf! Let the clang of the 
printing-press and the hum of the grist-mill be 
heard where but lately only the Indian's war- 
whoop awoke the forest solitudes ! Let those 
who have gone there, in good faith, erect an altar 
to Freedom, upon which they can swear — by the 
distant homes of their fathers, and by the hopes 
of their children — by the soil beneath their feet, 
and by that Jehovah in whom Ethan Allen put 
his trust — that she will ever be true to the prin- 
ciples of civil and religious liberty 1 



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